Government, political actors and governance in urban policies in Brazil and São Paulo: concepts for a future research agenda (original) (raw)
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Patterns of governance and government in São Paulo, Brazil
The paper departs from existing studies to discuss the main governance patterns present in urban and social policies in São Paulo. The article highlights the configuration of actors involved, the institutional settings in which governance occurs and the political grammars that regulate the processes, taking into account the various policy heritages involved, as well as different government levels, considering Brazilian federalism. At least five governance patterns are present: 1. Social policies (education, health and social assistance) – These policies have been under intense reform in the last decades. The resulting policy systems involve institutionalized social participation and local implementation, but under federal regulation, resulting in high standardization between municipalities. 2. Large infra-structure policies (sanitation, energy, subway) – These policies are formulated inside large state companies in a close decision process. Interest intermediation occurs thought con...
The increasing complexity of urbanization requires a more careful look at the relationships that produce and reproduce the Brazilian cities, locus of life of more than 80% of citizens and places in fruition by world economic system. This paper aims to demonstrate that, even after the creation of the City Statute in 2001 (document born from the claims of popular movements in the country's democratization in the 1980s and which regulates all the urban planning process of the cities in Brazil), the relation between social agents that (re)produce the urban space generates unequal political scenarios. In turn causing socio-spatial segregation, diminishing urban mobility, increased violence, emergence of "urban plutocrats" and flexibilization of the current legislation. This occurs because at one extreme is a State that fails to ensure the right to the city, exposing more people to high social vulnerability processes. On the other side, social movements contesting, ensuring and promoting rights already conquered by the population (which alter the nature of this process), and many times fighting against other more conservative movements which are used for political privileges to be held by use of power. Thus highlighting the contradictions that the Cities Statute cannot resolve, since, theoretically it should serve as a democratic territorial management channel. In this light, new debates appears for the social sciences, especially regarding the empowerment of new social agents, according to the economic dynamics and dominant politics in recent decades, as well as the search for a new typifying, nature and interests involved in urban planning. We believe that the academic debate needs to show -and also be updated about -the state action before the socially interested agents discuss and (re)produce the urban space. Therefore setting its stance towards democratically established legal frameworks, consonant to the proposal here presented, which aims to contribute to the sociological debate about the Brazilian cities, filling gaps left in recent years within the academy.
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The increasing complexity of urbanization requires a more careful look at the relationships that produce and reproduce the Brazilian cities, locus of life of more than 80% of citizens and places in fruition by world economic system. This paper aims to demonstrate that, even after the creation of the City Statute in 2001 (document born from the claims of popular movements in the country's democratization in the 1980s and which regulates all the urban planning process of the cities in Brazil), the relation between social agents that (re)produce the urban space generates unequal political scenarios. In turn causing socio-spatial segregation, diminishing urban mobility, increased violence, emergence of "urban plutocrats" and flexibilization of the current legislation. This occurs because at one extreme is a State that fails to ensure the right to the city, exposing more people to high social vulnerability processes. On the other side, social movements contesting, ensuring and promoting rights already conquered by the population (which alter the nature of this process), and many times fighting against other more conservative movements which are used for political privileges to be held by use of power. Thus highlighting the contradictions that the Cities Statute cannot resolve, since, theoretically it should serve as a democratic territorial management channel. In this light, new debates appears for the social sciences, especially regarding the empowerment of new social agents, according to the economic dynamics and dominant politics in recent decades, as well as the search for a new typifying, nature and interests involved in urban planning. We believe that the academic debate needs to show-and also be updated about-the state action before the socially interested agents discuss and (re)produce the urban space. Therefore setting its stance towards democratically established legal frameworks, consonant to the proposal here presented, which aims to contribute to the sociological debate about the Brazilian cities, filling gaps left in recent years within the academy.
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Despite regulatory and financial rollout of the state at a number of scales, and a strengthening of the institutional framework that guides territorial planning and management, Brazilian metropolitan governance continues to be characterized by fragmented and relatively competitive organizational structures. Likewise, the Brazilian metropolis is marked by economic dynamism and intense socio-spatial and environmental contradictions. Much of the mainstream literature on metropolitan governance has emphasized a natural "optimum" scale for planning and management in city-regions, articulated by public and private stakeholders aimed at the coordinated delivery of economic, social and environmental services. Combining the literature on new state spaces and critical Brazilian urban-regional studies, this paper provides an alternative framework to understand the impasse of Brazilian metropolitan areas, which is grounded within a geo-historic reading of the contradictory projects and strategies of the developmental state and the contested nature of metropolitan scale itself. Resumo: Apesar de um aumento da atuação do Estado, nas multiplas escalas, no campo da regulação e do financiamento, e também considerando o fortalecimento do arcabouço institutional que norteia o planejamento e gestão territorial, a governança metropolitana brasileira ainda se caracteriza pela presença de estruturas relativamente fragmentadas e competitivas. Da mesma forma, a metrópole brasileira é marcada pela confluência entre o dinamismo econômico e as contradições socioespaciais e ambientais. Grande parte da literatura hegemônica sobre governança metropolitana têm enfatizada a existência de uma escala natural, e "ótica", para nortear o planejamento e a gestão em cidades-regiões, que seria articulada por agentes públicos e privados em torno da provisão coordenada de uma serie de serviços econômicos, sociais e ambientais. Procurando estabelecer um diálogo entre a literatura sobre escalas e regimes de organização e atuação territorial do Estado e os estudos urbano-regionais brasileiros críticos, apresentamos um arcabouço teórico alternativo para compreender os impasses que cercam as áreas metropolitanas brasileiras. A perspectiva apresentada neste artigo é baseada numa leitura geográfica e histórica acerca dos projetos e das estratégias contraditórios do Estado desenvolvimentista, e da natureza contestada da própria escala metropolitana.
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2011
The 1990s in Brazil were a time of institutional advances in the areas of housing and urban rights following the signing of the new constitution in 1988 that incorporated the principles of the social function of cities and property, recognition of the right to ownership of informal urban squatters and the direct participation of citizens in urban policy decision processes. These propositions are the pillars of the urban reform agenda which, since the creation of the Ministry of Cities by the Lula government, has come under the federal executive branch. This article evaluates the limitations and opportunities involved in implementing this agenda on the basis of two policies proposed by the ministry — the National Cities Council and the campaign for Participatory Master Plans — focusing the analysis on government organization in the area of urban development in its relationship with the political system and the characteristics of Brazilian democracy.Résumé Au Brésil, les années 1990 o...
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This study discusses the evolvement of metropolitan governance in Brazil and uses greater São Paulo as an in-depth case study to demonstrate how metropolitan governance is organized in a megacity region in the Global South. This is of interest as many publications in this specific academic field focus on European or North American city regions that are, on average, smaller in size and part of multi-level governance systems. Hence, many theoretical positions that are established in the scholarly debate do not work well in the context of megacities. The study will describe how the metropolitan governance arrangement in greater São Paulo evolved and reflected on the setbacks and success of metropolitan planning and policies in the context of uncertain state support. Metropolitan regions have been established in Brazil by the military regime in the mid-1970s for industrialization and comprehensive top-down planning. After the fall of the regime in the 1980s, the question of metropolitan...